Hip arthroscopies are up — Who is performing them? 5 key notes

Researchers analyzed data from the American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery to examine which providers are performing hip arthroscopy procedures and published their findings in The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery.

The data spanned surgeons who performed at least one hip arthroscopy from 2006 to 2015 by CPT code. There were 6,987 ABOS candidates for membership examined and 9.2 percent had performed at least one hip arthroscopy. Study authors found:

1. The portion of candidates who performed hip arthroscopy increased over the study period. The proportion of hip arthroscopies performed related to all surgeries performed by candidates also jumped from 2006 to 2015.

2. Around 75 percent of the surgeons performing hip arthroscopy had completed a fellowship in sports medicine during the study period.

3. More than two-thirds of the candidates had performed five or fewer hip arthroscopies.

4. Around 6 percent of the surgeon candidates were high-volume hip arthroscopists; however those surgeons performed 34.6 percent of all hip arthroscopy procedures.

5. The increase in candidates performing hip arthroscopy may have been the key driver of increased hip arthroscopy utilization, not necessarily a higher number of procedures performed by individual surgeons. "This information is valuable for both trainees and educators interested in improving education and defining a curriculum for future hip arthroscopy training," concluded study authors.